Vodafone to launch 4G service by the end of the year

After Airtel, Vodafone India is all set to launch fourth generation (4G) mobile phone services in the country by the end of the year. While Reliance Jio plans to offer 4G services in the country by December 2015.

Vodafone India acquired additional 4G (LTE) spectrum in five circles in the country, in the February 2014 auctions. These circles together contribute close to 50 percent of the total data revenues for Vodafone India, the company said.

The telecommunication industry is gearing up for the prospective competition that these brands will face once the 4G service is launched. The easy availability of cheap smartphones along with fourth-generation service will enable a faster internet speed and download.

In addition, Vodafone India will also roll out its 3G network in 7 circles – Assam, North East, UP West, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Kerala and Odisha.

“The first of many services to be launched on this platform is the Live Video Call that features India’s favourite celebrities. To kick-start, Jio has on-boarded none other than Bollywood’s biggest star, Amitabh Bachchan, who will promote his upcoming comedy-drama film ‘102 Not Out’ in the most innovative way,” a company statement said here.

With Jio’s over 186 million subscriber base and another 150 million smartphone users, the sattement said: “JioInteract is poised to become the largest platform for movie-promotion and brand engagement. Over the next few weeks, Jio will introduce services such as video call centres, video catalogue, and virtual showrooms to the forefront redefining customer experience.”

Such use of artificial intelligence is a first across the world and will reposition the way brands and customers think of engagement, the company claimed.

Reliance Jio (Wikimedia Commons)

JioInteract’s first service “Live Video Call” will allow all Jio and other smartphone subscribers to make a video call with superstar, Amitabh Bachchan anytime during the day, starting on May 4, 2018.

Users can ask questions related to his upcoming comedy drama film, 102 Not Out and even book their movie tickets in real-time through the ticketing-partner BookMyShow.

“This unique and innovative service uses a powerful artificial intelligence based platform to listen to user questions and respond to them in the most appropriate way. In addition, the platform has a unique auto-learning feature that helps improve the answering accuracy,” the statement said.

It also said: “Positioned as VCBaaS (Video Call Bot as a Service), JioInteract with its full scale multimedia capabilities attempts to democratise Artificial Intelligence & Video Call technologies in a simplified way for effective brand engagement. This technology has wide scale applications across B2C space. Using it, Jio is also tapping developer ecosystem to create innovative applications like virtual showrooms, product demonstrations, ordering cart for e-commerce, etc.” (IANS)